About the Santa Cruz Mountains Bioregion

The Santa Cruz Mountains Bioregion covers an area of 3,592 square kilometers (1387 square miles) on the central coast, bounded on the north by the Golden Gate, on the East by San Francisco Bay and the Santa Clara Valley, on the south by the Pajaro River and on the west by the Pacific Ocean. It includes all of San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties and the western part of Santa Clara County.

The region is essentially one of heavily populated lowlands surrounding a core of forested uplands, with small to large pockets of everything from salt marsh to chaparral intermixed. It is rich in endemics and many other natural features of special interest, some of whose past and current distributions are well known, others hardly at all.

Who we are

The Santa Cruz Mountains Bioregional Council is a nonprofit public benefit corporation comprising biologists and other natural resource professionals whose objective is to conserve native plant and animal biodiversity in the Santa Cruz Mountains Bioregion. A nine-member Board of Directors governs the Council.

Directors of the Bioregional Council are required to be familiar with native flora or fauna and have a working knowledge of scientific research techniques or science-based habitat management practices. Associate Directors assist the Directors and may chair Advisory Committees.

The Directors and Associate Directors serve as individuals. Individual affiliations are listed for information only and do not imply any endorsement of the Bioregional Council or its actions by the entities listed.

Directors Of the Santa Cruz Mountains Bioregional Council (SCMBC)

Jen Michelsen, President of the SCMBC Board; Environmental Scientist with the San Lorenzo Valley Water District